25 The ninth stage part 5

PoV Seith

Diego: This is getting annoying. Seith, I will leave finding our place to rest to you since you know this place.

Slowly, I started to feel the connection between my soul and his body. I started feeling the heat, the humidity in the air, and the absolute stench that was in the air. I could feel Dubir's body in my hand. He was a lot sturdier than I imagined him to be. Then I finally started to see the colors of the world.

What was once just a colorless world full of shapes and weird energy flows had now turned gray, dark, and depressing. Outside the windows, all I could see were the ruins of what could once have been a well-off neighbor. The people roaming the streets had a resigned look on their faces; their bodies were worn out due to the poor working conditions they were constantly exposed to.

'At the end of the day, they're not much different from those zombies.'

"Seith"

I used the voice command to summon my body into my hands. It was very strange to look at my own body through somebody else's eyes. Since both my hands were occupied at the time, my body (a green and black war scythe) was floating in front of me.

Dubir then took control of the right arm and used it to slash someone who was about to slam a chair on our head. It wasn't a lethal cut, but it cut him deeply in the chest. I pointed the gun at him, but as soon as I tried to pull the trigger, Diego stopped me.

Diego: Put the gun away Seith, bullets are extremely rare. You're forbidden to use a handgun unless the opponent has one.

Immediately after, I gathered some aura and started burning his body alive. The other seniors backed away, thankfully.

'What to do now? I'm sure if I sat here, Chul's gang is going to be here any minute, swarming the place. I didn't want to cause-'

Dubir: I think it would be best to leave those kinds of situations to Diego. He knows best how to use his body, after all.

I took a deep breath to test out how sensitive my nose was and immediately regretted it. The place stank. I could smell even piss and shit. Still, it was a nostalgic smell I was once accustomed to.

Since no one seemed brave enough to attack me at that point, I headed towards the stairs. I noticed that everyone had fled the area. It was weird to see them so empty.

On the walls, there was a lot of graffiti, painting deformed versions of the heads of state. On the ground, there were the drawings of the many kids that lived there, attached to the walls. Mostly of horses, knights, and dragons. I even saw a plain drawing of a grass plain and a house with three stickmen in it.

As soon as I reached the last floor, Reg suddenly woke up.

Reg: This is?

'The ninth stage.'

Reg: What are you going to do now?

'I just want to confirm something with my own eyes; after that... I can't predict the future, but I can guess it'll be a pretty violent one in most scenarios.'

Reg: Why does it have to be violent?

'Either because that was once our place and nobody else deserves that place for themselves, or because she was extremely evil to me, so she deserves what's coming to her.'

Reg: Fifty years have passed; I think we should for-

'That will never happen. She must pay for what she did to me.'

Reg: But she's dead!

'That is to be seen.'

Reg: She's dead! Many decades have passed since then!

I ignored him and knocked on the door.

Father was inside. He slightly opened the door to take a peek at me and asked.

"Who are you?" He was wary. His gaze was fixated on my bloody sword.

All the fond memories I had with him started flooding my mind: the times he would play with us even when it was clear that he was tired; his riddles; his prickly beard when he kissed us. I wanted to hug him but managed to resist the urge.

"I- ummhh- fami- argh, can... I'm sorry if... Can you let me in?"

He still had his long red hair. He often used to gather them in a long ponytail. His azure eyes had dark circles beneath them, probably due to a lack of sleep. His beard was shaved properly, and he was fairly fit. It was weird to see him not smile at me as soon as our eyes met.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I'm-"

"I have some business with the woman you're secretly sheltering."

His eyes widened as soon as he heard those words.

"W-what kind o-of bu-business do you have wi-wi-with her?"

'Should I lie? ah who cares at this point'

"I'm her son!"

He stood there, shocked. He was processing the information, so I simply pushed him away and entered the room. The house was just as I remembered.

"What a cruel God he is." I murmured while heading toward their bedroom. I remember a small opening in the closet behind the many drawers that led to a very small secret compartment where me and my brother used to hide ourselves whenever we had "guests" inside the house.

As I expected, she was hiding there. I grabbed her by the ankle, dragged her outside the small secret compartment, and threw her away.

She was a beautiful woman with long dark hair, and her eyes were like almonds of a deep blue.

"Dubir." The sword disappeared. With my now free hand, I grabbed the body that was still floating around me and pointed the blade at her neck.

"What are you-"

"Shut up, this matter doesn't involve you!" I shouted at him.

I pressed the tip of my blade against her neck.

She immediately tried to get up and back away, but she tripped on her way out.

"You… why?" My voice was trembling, I felt cold sweat in my palms, and I still tried to keep my head cool.

"I- I don't understand-"

"STOP FEIGNING IGNORANCE! I ALREADY KNOW EVERYTHING!"

She made a small, acute sound in fear as I shouted at her. She then put her hands on the scythe and tried to gently pull it away.

"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY BODY WITH YOUR FILTHY HANDS!"

I then proceeded to swing my body on the right side, making her back away towards the corner. Every time she tried to get up, I kicked her back down.

My father tried once to stop me, but I hit him in the head with the pole of my body. As soon as I saw him bleeding from the injury, I kicked Mom in the head, making her head smash against the corner of the room.

"Should I tell him since you keep feigning ignorance?" I rhetorically asked her.

At that moment, I said that in the most spiteful way possible. Dubir even compared my tone to that of a snake.

She didn't respond, and snot started coming out of her nose while she was trying to hold back her tears. She was repeating "I don't know" like a broken record while crying.

"Well, since it came to this... She's pregnant with twins, and they are not yours; she's a prostitute, and her clients are all the people living in this complex." I said this in the most cold and cruel tone possible, as if the fault for all of this was somehow on him.

"What gave you the right? Do you see this scythe?" I asked her.

"Reg!" He promptly appeared as a white and golden scythe. Thankfully, he was still dormant.

"Take a good look at what we've become. It is all your fault."

I said this while pointing Reg at her neck.

"So tell me, what gave you the right to ruin our lives like that? Why couldn't you just... abort us, or better yet, why couldn't you keep our family united? It's not like you even gained money by opening your legs, so why?"

Father was still on the ground. He was not making any sudden movements. He was just standing there with a blank expression on his face. She was also sobbing uncontrollably. She was apologizing, but her voice was so feeble that it was hard to even listen to. So I shifted Reg's body and used him to raise her chin and force her to look into my eyes.

"Why did you do it?" I asked.

Once again, I was met with lots of apologies but no real answer.

"Are you fine with looking at our two sons turned into weapons?" I asked her.

"Can you even imagine what we went through?" I raised the tone of my voice yet again.

I don't know why I grabbed a small lamb and smashed it against the wall.

"How could you backstab us and our father like that?" I said this while sitting in front of her, grabbing her head and forcing her to look at me directly in the eyes.

"Have you no conscience?"

The me of that time would run towards her and hug her till she stopped crying. Now I could only feel disgusted by her every action. Every question she would only answer with "I'm sorry."

In a fit of rage, I got up and hit her with a knee in her face again.

"ANSWER ME YOU-"

I could barely understand what she was saying in between sobs but for a moment, I thought I heard "I never meant any harm".

I immediately stabbed her in the thigh using Reg. Part of me wanted to kill her immediately. The only reason she was still alive was because giving her a quick death was not something she deserved.

"I always found it weird how you managed to afford your medications and at the same time manage to keep paying the increasing rent. I always held out hope that one day our lives could turn for the better."

I still remember the last day in our house vividly. My father had died of exhaustion some months prior, and my mother was too weak to work, and her new boyfriend was taking care of her. We had to work outside most of the day, selling scrap, transporting drugs, and having weird medicines tested on our bodies.

That day, a group of thugs broke in. They beat us to a pulp and had their way with our mother while she was screaming and crying. My brother and I could only hide in a corner in fear. Apparently, she had stolen from one of her clients a long time ago, and they had just discovered it was her.

We lived for a couple of months in the streets because of her. We had to do whatever it took to survive, even killing other homeless people in their sleep, even when my brother was crying by my side, begging me to stop.

Yet somehow, you never really had to suffer from hunger. You survived even without your medications, because that was the deal, right?"

"Did you also cheat on him for that reason?" "Was everything all just to make our lives as miserable as possible?"

I pulled Reg out of her thigh and stabbed her in the stomach. She tried to stop the blade with her hands, but she was too weak to stop my blow.

Most of the fingers on her left hand were cut off in the process.

She kept begging for mercy. She made false promises. She even tried to promise to "treat us right this time around".

I wanted to twist the blade that was now inside her guts, but Reg stopped me from doing so by blocking my arms. I then proceeded to kick her in the face with all my strength.

Her head cracked against the wall, yet for some reason she was still fine. She wasn't bleeding, and her wounds were perfectly healed.

'Reg, do you really want to side with her, after all we've been through?'

He did not respond.

"Reg, get out! Dubir, come out!" As I started swapping in between weapons, I noticed her becoming extremely pale.

I grabbed Dubir before he had even finished forming his body and tried to cut one of her hands off.

Reg: Brother, please wake-

"SHUT IT REG! HOW DARE YOU PROTECT THIS VILE THING AFTER ALL THE THINGS SHE DID TO US- NO TO ME ! YOU NEVER EXPERIENCED HELL, EVEN WHEN HER NEW BOYFRIEND WAS…" I wanted to puke at the mere thought of those memories.

Everything was starting to turn red. I wanted to scream, cry, and smash things. I had a weird urge to grab my own throat and strangle myself, but I also wanted to strangle her and poke a hole in her eyes with my thumbs.

This time I stabbed her in the right hand and then twisted the blade. Immediately after, she tried to push me away, but I simply hit her on the face with my knee.

"I want to ask you one last thing before I kill you…"

She then asked for father's help, shouting and begging. He was still frozen in place. I couldn't really tell what he was thinking, as he had a blank expression on his face.

"Did you really think they would spend enough money to make you live a life free of worries after this experiment?"

Her eyes widened at hearing my question. It was clear as day that she never considered the fact that they might simply dump her back in the slums or, worse, kill her.

"T-they wouldn't, after all-"

I kicked her in the stomach, pulled out dubir from her hand, and started repeatedly stomping it.

"You-" I sighed.

'How could one be this stupid? Reg, can you see her now?'

Reg: Seith-

'This is all we were worth to her; to her, we were just a tool. How can you forgive a mother like her.'

Reg: I just... it was probably the circumstances that led her to that decision. If you look around, you'll see only misery and death, she-'

"Don't you dare give me that crap, Reg! It was obvious that a deal like that would not be respected. What can you respect about a man asking you to create weapons out of your own flesh and blood."

I cut off her left foot. She wailed in pain, trying to squirm away from the corner, and every time she did, I beat her until she returned there.

"What can you respect about a woman who's ready to sell her own children to a random cult of people."

"I was just trying to survive." muttered the woman on the ground. Her voice was so feeble that I almost missed it.

I was furious, so much so that I had lost control over my powers and was slowly choking them under the pressure of my energy. To relieve that anger, I started stomping on her face constantly.

'How dare you…' I was seething.

"I was right after all; a woman like you doesn't deserve to live." As I raised the sword, I felt Fury and Reg working against me to stop me. Even Father had grabbed me from behind and was actively pulling me away from her.

Before they managed to separate me from her, I managed to kick her one last time in the face with enough force to make her smash her head against the wall and make her bleed from the injury.

All I could do at that moment was shout in rage as I tried to regain control of my body.

"FURY! REG!" As they started to materialize themselves, I felt their powers slowly fading away from blocking my body.

To free myself from my father, I simply started running backwards and smashed him against the wall with all my force. Then I transformed my main body into the form of a javelin and threw it towards the trembling woman, piercing her chest and impaling her to the wall.

I immediately charged her, holding Dubir's body with both hands, ready to deal the final blow, when suddenly pure white chains appeared from where Reg was floating and blocked me from moving further.

"FREY!"

As soon as the spear appeared, I grabbed it and threw it at her.

'She's not surviving today.'

The second spear pierced her in the lower part of the abdomen, not much after Reg made his chains fade into thin air. By then, she was barely alive, mumbling nonsense. Her sobs had now stopped, and so had her tears.

I pulled Frey and my body out of her, then transformed my body into a dagger and started repeatedly stabbing her in the stomach. Sometimes I would also stab her in other parts of her body, such as her arms, her throat, and her eyes. I don't know how long I stayed in that state. When I recovered my senses, I had already cut off her limbs from her body, cut off each finger, ear, and nose, gouged her eyes, and lastly, I had opened her abdomen and pulled out every organ inside of it.

When I saw her in that state, I felt relief, I turned my face towards my father and said.

"I did it, father; I avenged you. This evil woman will no longer make you suffer; you can finally move on."

He seemed scared.

Diego: Don't you feel pity for him? Why do you have to be so cruel to him?

'What are you talking about?'

Reg couldn't finish his sentence because the world around me started shattering into a million pieces, as if it were made out of glass. In reality, I was chained down in the hallway of the last floor, right beside the elevator.

Diego: The guys you warned me about are about to enter the building. You know what this means, right?

And just like that, the world turned completely black once again, with white lines defining the environment around me.

Reg: I'm sorry, brother I just-

'DON'T CALL ME YOUR BROTHER AFTER WHAT YOU'VE DONE! I DON'T KNOW YOU! YOU'RE DEAD TO ME!'